


Helpless, lovely

by Fatale (femme)



Series: domestic 'verse [1]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Babies, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later when recounting the details to Peter, Neal won’t remember what he was preoccupied with, or what hat he’d chosen with his suit that day, he won’t remember anything except for the way his foot caught on the edge of the baby car seat or the small, surprised wail of response that emanated from the carrier at being jostled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helpless, lovely

Helpless, lovely  
Gen  
One-shot, but I plan to write more. This part is Gen, but it’ll probably take a Peter/El/Neal turn. Maybe.  
PG-13 for saucy language because I can’t stop cussin’  
WC: 2,300

A/N: What a crap week I’ve had. I wrote schmoopy baby!fic and I’m not proud of that fact. But I need this. Let me have this.

As always, unbeta’ed and rough. Feel free to point out typos and whatever flying leaps of logic I’ve made, so long as it’s not, “You’re crazy, this would never happen.” Trust me, I know.

 

 

Later when recounting the details to Peter, Neal won’t remember what he was preoccupied with, or what hat he’d chosen with his suit that day, he won’t remember anything except for the way his foot caught on the edge of the baby car seat or the small, surprised wail of response that emanated from the carrier at being jostled.

He’ll remember pulling back the blanket and seeing a baby, about three months old, with a light dusting of dark brown hair and huge blue eyes and thinking, _Oh, fuck._

 

*

 

 

His mind is racing in a manner that some might ungenerously describe as ‘hysterical,’ but to Neal’s mind seems _just panicked enough_ , because there is a baby, an honest to god tiny baby, on his doorstep, and it’s crying, it looks an awful lot like him and the stubborn radio silence Alex has maintained for a little over a year since she’d last been in New York is beginning to shape itself into a terrible picture.

The baby, perhaps sensing Neal’s absolute, utter fucking panic, ups its cry to a lusty wail.

Neal kind of feels like doing the same thing.

He can’t leave the baby in the hallway, he reasons, nor can he step back into his apartment and close the door like this never happened, as much as he’d like to. He brings the baby inside.

Neal’s a con man, he can charm anyone.

He pats the baby awkwardly and says in what he hopes are soothing tones, “There, there,” while his other hand pulls out his phone and furiously races through the contacts.

The first person he calls is Peter, who laughs and laughs and laughs.

“Are you done?” Neal asks, feeling placed in the precarious situation of wanting to hang up on Peter immediately but also desperately needing Peter’s help.

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter manages to wheeze finally. “So, you have a baby.”

“I don’t _have_ a baby, as in own, I have a baby in my fleeting possession for the moment,” Neal feels compelled to point out. “I do not intend to _keep_ the baby.”

There’s silence from Peter’s end for a moment before he hears, “All right. Okay. I’m not far. I’ll be at your apartment in a few minutes. Anything you need me to pick up?”

Neal fumbles with the car seat and the diaper bag, fishes around and finds powdered formula, some empty bottles, wipes and a few diapers and some kind of terrible-smelling cream. He feels utterly lost. “I have no clue,” he finally admits.

“Never mind,” Peter says. “I’ll see what you have and then we can take it from there. See you in a few.”

Neal hangs up, infinitely relieved.

He looks helplessly over at the baby, whose eyes are wide-open and staring back at him. Neal knows objectively that the baby isn’t judging him, can’t possibly be capable of that level of thought, but he can’t help think that the baby looks deeply unimpressed with him anyway.

 

*

 

Neal lets Peter into the apartment with the kind of sagging relief usually reserved for SWAT teams coming to bail him out of another terrible situation he’s gotten into and his first cup of coffee in the morning.

“Where’s the baby?” Peter brushes past him, and hands him a full shopping bag weighted down by baby products.

Neal peers inside and fishes through the tubes and bottles with mounting horror as he sees crude cartoon sketches of baby’s butts and other various body parts on the boxes. This is possibly the most frightening thing he’s ever seen and that includes the Turkish prison he once spent six weeks in.

Peter’s standing over the infant, staring at it speculatively. “Looks like you,” he says finally.

“Jesus,” Neal breathes. “Don’t even say that.”

Peter ignores him because he’s _awful_. “Did you feed - wait, is it a girl or boy?”

Neal has no idea, which is just more evidence that he’s a terrible person, would be a terrible father and maybe just all-around sucks. “I don’t know,” he confesses, sounding more embarrassed than he means to.

Peter hmms at him and unstraps the baby for the carrier, who gurgles happily at being handled by someone not clearly terrified of it. Peter unsnaps the yellow - Neal’s mind gropes for the right word, jumpsuit? - and peers into the baby’s diaper. “Girl,” he announces and makes a face. “You have any diapers?”

“Yes,” Neal says, stumbling over to the diaper bag on the counter. He grabs one, thinks again, and then grabs the packet of wipes. A note falls out from between the diapers. Neal skims over it and it’s just about what he expected. It’s from Alex: She’s sorry, she can’t do this, Neal can offer the child more stability than she can.

Her name is Sofia.

There isn’t a moment when all the pieces fit together, or some great revelation. Neal just knows, has known, from the minute he tripped over the baby outside his door that this was his child, that Alex had a baby without telling him, and that she was woefully unprepared for the baby, like anyone with their particular skill sets might be.

They’ll run the DNA tests, but Neal doesn’t really need it. The knowledge settles in his gut like a stone.

Peter’s making faces and speaking nonsense while the baby smiles back, toothless and wide.

“You’re good at this. How are you so good at this?” Neal asks, feeling tired and out of his depth in general.

“I have been around children, Neal.” Peter shoots him a curious look. “Haven’t you ever been around kids?”

Neal shrugs. “I mean, when? In Prison? Or before, when I was running from the FBI?”

“Point taken. No need to get snippy,” Peter says in a high sing-song voice, while smiling at the baby.

Neal lays out the supplies on the coffee table and grabs a blanket folded over the couch and spreads it out, because Peter is not changing a baby on his kitchen table.

Actually, Peter’s not going to change the baby at all, apparently, by the way Peter stands back and hands Neal the diaper.

He looks at Peter, who looks pointedly back at him, then looks at the baby, who’s blowing snot bubbles. _God._

Neal gathers up his courage silently and takes the baby from Peter. He holds her carefully, his arms awkward and too large around her, like she’s a Faberge egg and he happens to be in the unique position to know exactly what that feels like.

He lays her down on the couch, cleans her up, and manages not to throw up or drop her once, a fact that he’s illogically proud of. Peter stops him before he can put a fresh diaper on, and slaps a tube of paste into his hand.

“You don’t want her to get a diaper rash,” Peter explains.

“I’m not an _idiot_ , Peter, I've got this,” Neal insists, and smoothes some of the thick, white paste on her bottom before sliding the diaper under her and fastening it with a flourish and triumphant grin.

“You’ve put the diaper on backwards,” Peter points out, very reasonably.

 

*

 

Peter swabs the inside the baby’s cheek first, then Neal’s, and slips them into labeled tubes before tucking them into his pocket. “I’ll have this tested. I’ll push it through - we’ll know soon.”

“So what now?” Neal asks.

Peter looks at him for a moment. “I can make a call to Social Services, if you want.”

Neal’s trying, but he can’t seem to meet Peter’s eyes. “Yeah - I mean, that’s probably for the best.” He leans over the back of a chair. “Does it make me such a bad guy?”

“No, it makes you human. It makes you scared, but Neal, I’ve never known you to let fear stop you from anything.”

No matter what Peter says, Neal’s aware it makes him an enormous asshole, because he knows, he _knows_ what it’s like not to be wanted, not to be taken care of by the people that should have cared for you the most, but he can’t help himself. He’s sure of it with a knowledge deep inside his veins, in his bones. He was not meant to do this. He can’t.

“Hey -” Peter says, rubbing his back in small circular motions. “You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

The baby starts fussing and Neal goes to pick her up and instinctively rubs a hand over her back just like Peter was doing to him, and she quiets a bit, snuffling tearfully into his neck.

Neal closes his eyes, breaths in and out, feels her heartbeat in the back of her neck, fast and soft like a trapped butterfly beneath his palms.

“All right, no Social Services right now. Just - get the results and I can watch her a bit. You know, until the results come in.”

“And when they do?”

They both know what the results will be without even having to say it aloud, but Neal needs the illusion to get him through the next 24 hours.

“Then we’ll deal with it,” Neal says firmly, with a bravado he doesn’t feel.

 

*

 

Neal makes the formula without too much trouble because the directions are on the side. He’s watched TV and knows that the temperature needs to be tested on his arm, but no one ever mentioned what the correct temperature is, so he blows and blows on it, trying to cool it down, and then it’s lukewarm and lumpy.

He feels a cold sweat break out all over his body and makes a phone call.

 

*

 

When Mozzie arrives, Neal has four bottles spread over the counter at varying temperatures and the baby is crying because she’s hungry and Neal’s not clinically depressed or anything, but jumping from the balcony has its appeal, is all.

“Well, mon frere, never thought I’d see the day,” Mozzie says, surveying the mess cluttering every available surface of the apartment with wide eyes.

“Less laughing at my expense and more helping me figure out how to make formula,” Neal snaps irritably.

“Who’s laughing?” Mozzie pushes up the sleeves of his truly appalling sweater and grabs a bottle. “Too hot, too cold - ah, this one should do it,” he says, victoriously holding up the third bottle after inverting it and dabbing a little on the inside of his arm.

“Thanks, Goldilocks,” Neal says, taking the bottle gratefully. He picks up the baby, carefully holds her head up like Peter showed him and begins feeding her. His ears ring, even after she’s stopped squalling in misery. Dry, gritty baby formula coats the table, his eyebrows, his fingertips and he doesn’t even give a damn because it’s so blessedly quiet.

Neal slumps into a chair and lets his head fall back in pure bliss. He feels his eyes slide shut; he hadn’t realized he was this exhausted.

Across the table, he hears the scrape of Mozzie pulling out a seat and sitting down heavily. “So, what are we going to do?”

“We?” It’s an unfair question, Neal knows. After all, Moz is only here because Neal called him, pleaded desperately over the phone, muttering something about milk! And temperatures!

Except now that he’s had time to think about it, it was shitty and unfair to drag him into this. Moz has - has always had - hang-ups with children and parents who were lousy with them. Neal doesn’t know if he can handle letting someone else down.

As if he can track the direction of Neal’s thoughts, Mozzie stiffens in his chair, going oddly formal in the way he does when he has to say something that’s going to make them both uncomfortable. “You know, I’ve known some bad people, Neal. People that should never have had kids, people that didn’t even deserve them - I just never thought you’d be one of them.” He doesn’t sound angry, just something Neal can’t place.

“Moz,” Neal says helplessly. The baby’s making small gurgling sounds and Neal unconsciously shifts his arms, her weight a warm, steady pressure.

“No, it’s fine. Not everyone’s meant to be a parent,” Mozzie says as he gets up to leave. “God knows, I know that. I’ll come back later - I just need to take a walk for a while.”

It’s not until after Moz leaves that Neal figures it out - he’d sounded terribly disappointed.

 

*

 

Neal holds her until she finishes about half her bottle, then turns her over his shoulder and gently pats her back until she lets out a heinous, soul-rocking burp that makes Neal blink in confusion and vague worry.

As he lays her down, he tries to think of her as he would any other treasured possession - a Monet, a Picasso - but he could love and own those things without them ever touching him back, or wrapping an entire hand around his finger while drifting off to sleep.

People can’t exist in a vacuum, Neal thinks, and affection does creep in, however unwilling you may be to let it. Falling in love with a mark ruins a con, it’s one of the first lessons he’s learned, but Neal’s not sure a baby can even be conned.

Her little feet kick up, pudgy and soft, her toes look impossibly small, the nailbeds fragile and paper-thin. Before he can think too much about it, he takes hold of her foot and presses a quick kiss to the heel.

Neal looks down at the baby - his baby, he corrects himself, his _Sofia_ \- at her pink cheeks, her tiny fists twitching, and feels something in his chest crack open, just a bit. He leans down over her, feels her shallow warm breath gusting over his cheeks, and says, soft enough not to wake her, “You’re going to change everything, aren’t you?”

 

 

The end.


End file.
